If you feel that you are a bad Christian because of your failures, you might be putting confidence in the flesh. If you feel that you are doing OK as a Christian (because, well, you are doing OK, at least right now), you might be putting confidence in the flesh. But the Holy Spirit calls us to put all our confidence in Christ, not our own performance.

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This is our third installment on Philippians 3, verses 1-11. Last time we focused primarily on putting Jesus above all else, and considering everything a loss compared to the surpassing wonderfulness of knowing Jesus Christ. But I want to return to something Paul said here:

“For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh”

We talked a little bit about how Jewish people put their confidence in how well they observed man-made regulations about the law of Moses. Paul did that himself. But this time, I want to talk about what it means for Christians to put no confidence in the flesh. Most of us are not putting confidence in how well we obey the Jewish Sabbath regulations, and so on. But even so, we are prone to putting confidence in the flesh.

“Flesh” in this sense means, “not the Spirit of God, but human effort, or human values.” Another way to think of flesh is “the self, apart from God.” So when we put confidence in the flesh, it shows up in two major flavors. One way of “putting confidence in the flesh” is to feel that we have performed well. So, for instance, when I manage to pull together some self-discipline and maybe change some ungodly habits, (like gluttonous eating) I might feel pretty good about myself. Or, perhaps I’ve started a godly habit of praying every day, or serving others every week, and so I feel that I’m in a better place with God than I was  a couple weeks ago, when I only prayed once, and dodged every chance I had to help anyone. Now, here’s the important part: In these examples, even though we are trying to live more godly lives, we are doing so by putting confidence in our flesh. To put it bluntly, we feel that we are better off because we have performed better. This was the way in which Paul previously put confidence in the flesh. He was incredibly self-disciplined, and so he performed well, and he thought that made him right with God. Our good feeling is not because we have confidence in Jesus and what he has done for us, it is because we have done well. Our confidence that we’re doing well with God is based on our own performance.

There’s another way that also puts confidence in the flesh, and it is this: we feel badly about our spiritual state because we have performed badly. Yes, this, too, is putting confidence in the flesh. Our hope is in our flesh behaving well, and that hope has disappointed us. But our hope, our confidence, even in this situation, is still in our flesh, not in Jesus Christ. We feel bad because we feel that some measure of the Christian life is up to us. We are still judging ourselves and our performance based on how well (or not) our flesh behaves.

To summarize: If you feel that you are a bad Christian because of your failures, you might be putting confidence in the flesh. If you feel that you are doing OK as a Christian (because, well, you are doing OK, at least right now), you might be putting confidence in the flesh.

This is part of what Paul considers “loss” and “rubbish” compared to Jesus Christ. You think you should feel good about yourself because you’ve managed to stay disciplined for a few months? Rubbish! Trash! Don’t put any confidence in your own good performance. Do you feel badly because you can’t seem to put two decently-Christian days together in a row? Garbage! Filth! Don’t put any confidence in your own bad performance.

I’ve had to wrestle with this in my own ministry. When I was 25, I started a network of house churches. After just two months, the first non-believer became a disciple of Jesus. He was followed by two more a few months later, and then an avalanche of people who had never followed Jesus began to do so. Along the way we experienced miracles of healing and deliverance and words from the Lord. Believers who had been stuck in their faith began to grow. The church grew. People were delivered from demonic forces, from psychological problems, from troubled marriages, and so many other wonderful things happened. I look back at some of the sermons that I wrote then, and think, “Where in the world did I get that kind of wisdom at 25 years old?”

Well, as it happens, both then and now, I knew where the wisdom came from, and where the miracles came from, and everything else: It was all the work of the Holy Spirit. At the time I was very clear about not claiming any credit for myself, and today I stand by that. It was a wonderful work of God, and I just got to go along for the ride.

So, fast forward a few years. I love our New Joy Fellowship, and our Life Together Churches network. I love that a lot of other people I’ve never met tune-in online. But, objectively, things haven’t gone quite as stunningly well as they did during my younger years. Things seem to be moving a lot more slowly. Several years ago, I was kind of lamenting this, and assuming responsibility for it. I thought I must be failing in various ways, since things were so different than they were when I was younger. My wife said to me: “Tom, did you take credit for all those wonderful things when we were younger? Would you take credit for them today?”

The answer was a clear and obvious, “Of course not.”

She said, “So why are you trying to ‘take credit’ for things not going the way you want them to right now? You said back then it was all the Lord. If that’s true, than isn’t this time also all up to the Lord?”

I married a wise woman.

If any of that good stuff when I was younger came about simply because of my effort, then it was not worth much. The point is this: The good stuff is rubbish unless it came from Jesus. And so is the bad stuff. I have never been perfect, when I was young, or now. But it doesn’t matter. I put no confidence in good flesh, or bad flesh.

I want to flesh out (hah!) what I mean by putting confidence in bad flesh. I’ll call out a few of my own sins and failings here. I have been really trying to stop being so angry and judgmental toward the many (many!) abysmal, horrible, thoughtless, moronic, ____, drivers that I encounter when I get in the car (you see my problem). We can laugh about it, but it’s not actually funny. What comes out of me when another driver offends me is ugly, rageful, and rude, prideful and selfish. My family have seen me that way, and I would be genuinely ashamed for anyone else to see me when I’m like that. Now, when I fail in that way, I should, and do repent, apologize to the Lord, and to whoever is in the car with me. But what happens after that? I have two possible paths. One, the path of “bad flesh.” It looks something like this: I think “When am I ever going to grow up and get over this stupid reaction I have? How can I possibly preach to people that Jesus changes us, when, week after week, month after month, I still fail in this way? What kind of pathetic Christian am I, anyway?” If it’s really bad, I can go into a cycle of thinking this way for days. Now here’s the thing we may not realize: when I act this way, spending a lot of time and energy being bothered about my failure, I am putting confidence in the (bad) flesh. To put it simply, I am acting as if the flesh matters. But in Christ we are to put no confidence in our performance whether it is good or bad. When we are in Jesus, the flesh doesn’t matter either way. Good performance doesn’t matter. Bad performance doesn’t matter. We shouldn’t give any weight to our performance, either way.

Paul helps us with this when he is talking about his potential reasons for confidence in the flesh. He starts off mentioning his reasons for confidence in “good flesh:” his birth, circumcision, career as a Pharisee, and so on. But then he says “as to zeal, a persecutor of the church.” Why throw that one in there? I think Paul is saying, “If I wanted to put confidence in the flesh, I could also spend a lot of time thinking about what a terrible person I have been.” In other words, the fact that he was persecuting the church tempts him to give weight to “bad flesh” in his life.

Now, if we really get this, and we say, “The flesh doesn’t matter if it’s good, or even if it’s bad,” some questions naturally come to mind: “Why bother to be good? Why worry about being bad? If it’s really true that neither one matters, why don’t I just live to please my own desires, even if they are sinful?”

The answer to such questions is love. I am legally married to my wife Kari. That remains a legal fact, no matter how I behave. There was nothing in my marriage vows about doing dishes, listening, cuddling, holding hands, taking walks, managing finances, being supportive, or taking the garbage out. I can do those things, or not, and still be married to Kari. So, why would I do any of those kinds of things? The answer is obvious: love. I have learned the sorts of things that are important to Kari, and because I love Kari, I try to engage in such behaviours. I do not do so perfectly, not by a long shot. When I fail to do certain things, it causes injury to our relationship. Listen carefully: it doesn’t end our relationship, it just means that I need to recognize that I’ve hurt Kari, and that we need to talk about it, forgive one another, and move on. I don’t live this way with Kari because of some kind of rule or law. I do it because I love her.

We are in the same situation with Jesus. When we love him, we want to do things that make him happy. When we fail, we need to go through reconciliation. But the whole thing is not based upon performance, but on relationship, on love. In fact, we find that Jesus and his apostles taught us that this is exactly how it works. Jesus said:

¹⁵ “If you love me, you will keep my commands. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. ¹⁷ He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you do know him, because he remains with you and will be in you.(John 14:15-17, CSB)

Now, it can be easy to misunderstand. It can sound like Jesus is saying, “In order to prove you love me, you must do what I command.” But I think what he is actually saying is this: “If you love me, you will naturally, as a result of that love, want to do the things I want you to. If you love me you won’t want to intentionally hurt or disappoint me, and you will want to do the things that are important to me.” He then adds a brief statement about the Holy Spirit. Why? Because it is only through the Holy Spirit that we can truly love Jesus. We don’t have to come up with love for God out of our own strength (that would be relying on the flesh again). No, the Holy Spirit within us helps us to love God.

When a teacher of the law asked him about the commandments, here’s another way Jesus put the same concept:

³⁶ “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” ³⁷ And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ³⁸ This is the great and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. ⁴⁰ On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:35-40, ESV)

Of course, Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan to show us that our neighbor is everyone we encounter in this life. So, if we love God, we will want to do things his way. If we love our neighbor, we will not intentionally hurt other people.

Now, believe me, I know the next objection: “But I do actually do things my own way, rather than God’s (often!), and I do sometimes do things that I know will hurt other people. Therefore I must not really love God, or my neighbor.”

So, two things here. First, a question: Do you want to do such hurtful things? Obviously, a part of you must want to. We’ll call that part the flesh. But isn’t there also a part of you that says, “I wish I wasn’t this way. I wish I could do better. I don’t really want to be like this.” If there is, than you have confirmation of the fact that part of you is made from flesh that is in rebellion against God. That’s the part that is not interested in being loving, unless you can get what you want that way. But the other part of you is the Holy Spirit of God in you. So, there is a part of you that does love God and neighbor. Your heart agrees with God about what is right or wrong, even when you don’t follow it.

I had a friend who wasn’t a follower of Jesus, and then eventually, he became one. He told me that after becoming a Christian, he started to struggle with lust. This surprised me. I asked him to explain. He said, “Before surrendering to Jesus, I didn’t struggle with lust. I just lusted. There was no struggle involved. But now, part of me doesn’t want to lust anymore.”

So, if you struggle to do the right thing, the very fact that part of you wants to do it shows that you do, in fact, love God, and your neighbor. It also shows that your body is corrupted by sin, and is working against those loves. But remember: the flesh is irrelevant.

Loving God is not the same thing as putting confidence in your flesh. Your performance—how well you love God (or not)—is irrelevant. God loves you, regardless of how you perform. You love God, in spite of the fact that sometimes you don’t act like it.

Here is another wonderful thing. As I mentioned above, it is not up to us to come up with love, like it would be up to us to come up with good performance. No, the Holy Spirit, who enters us when we trust Jesus, will himself give us the ability to love God and our neighbor. If you feel like you don’t know if you really do love God enough, ask him to help you love him better. That’s a prayer he will answer!

Put no confidence in the flesh—not when you can make it behave, not when you can’t. Instead, fix your eyes on Jesus Christ. Through faith you have a righteousness that has nothing to do with the flesh, or the law. It is righteousness that comes from the Holy Character and Life of Jesus Christ himself, based upon him, not you.